To Start a War
by Pixidus Velorum
Summary: This is a Dark! Insane! Genius! Harry fic, exploring the damage a cracked, Megagenius, time-traveling Harry can do. I wont spoil anything here, so go ahead and give it a read, if you can dig psycho Harry bent on destruction
1. Chapter 1

This came to me as a thunderbolt from the blue, and begged to be put to page, so here it is. I can't realistically give an estimate on length, or estimated time of completion, or even guarantee that it won't be abandoned at some point, but, it'll be fun while it lasts…. At least I hope. At current, I don't have any plans for a pairing or anything too smutty, but _**there will be violence**_ , and _**there will be blood**_. The M rating is _**definitely**_ there for a reason folks.

Disclaimer: Blah blah, I don't own anything blah

Prologue: Incipere!

A mad, derisive cackle echoes through the room, contrasting harshly with the moans of the dying. In a vast, subterranean cavern, magically smoothed and expanded, hundreds of the dead and dying are suspended, upside-down, their life-blood flowing onto the rock below. The blood is channeled into massive runic engravings, not that any wizard or historian would recognize the carvings as such. Save one.

That man, insanely cackling as he skips, gleefully, about the chamber, would be unrecognizable to any who might have once known him. Even he has forgotten his own name, calling himself by whatever his fancy desires at the time. His hair, once a shaggy, untamable black, now juts wildly out of his skull, like he had been hit with lightening. The oddly pale, silvery lavender strands extend wildly down to his shoulders, frazzled and curly.

His monochromatic eyes, a bloody red and glinting, verdant emerald, glow softly as the spin wildly in their sockets, darting about madly, taking in everything nearly at once. His short stature is belied by the way he bounces around almost constantly, even when standing still. As his instrument, a long, thin stick, ending in an arrowhead, tears savagely a crossed the final neck, the massive runic array at his feet finals activates, glowing a shimmering non-color, exactly as he had determined it should.

Quickly, the man dashes a crossed the chamber, incredibly nimble, his white lab coat whipping about him. With a final leap, followed of course by an arbitrary front-flip, he lands in the center of the vast array. His arrow-wand, a disturbing bone-white, flashes over his palm in a blur, then returns to its place behind his ear. He cups his palm to hold his blood, and withdraws a small, golden pocket watch. The watch doesn't hold a face or dial, but a miniature hourglass containing a single grain of sand.

With another manic cackle, he crushes it in his hand and drops the wreckage of the small device, somehow managing to hold onto only the tiny grain of sand. He holds the grain up to his eye, and his voice emanates once more, though this time it's so startlingly soft as to be another person entirely. "To see the world in a grain of sand, hold infinity in the palm of your hand," He drops the tiny grain into his pooled blood, eyes devouring it as it sinks into the viscous fluid and begins to absorb it.

"Cast into time, to live eternity in a moment, suffering a single moment endlessly," He jerks violently, a shocked gasp escaping his lips as he feels the infinitesimal grain of time latch to his magic and spread into him. "Casting a world into darkness, to bare upon it new golden light," He casts his hand to the side and pinwheels it, creating a bloody circle that suspends itself in the air before him. "Sacrifices given, to receive nothing, and everything taken with no recompense,"

He whips his hand about the bloody circle, carving a circle of runes into the air with his blood. "I see the world in this grain of sand, I hold infinity in the palm of my hand," His hand whips a final time through the air, the bloody, glowing grain of time sand lodging directly in the center of the runic circle he had drawn. "I cast myself into time, to suffer eternity in a moment, to cast a world into darkness, TO DESTROY EVERYTHING AND GIVE BACK NOTHING!" he screams into the chamber, his magic pulsing wildly about him.

The runic array seems to lock into place and begin spinning, ticking like a clock. The front of his shirt and coat are suddenly soaked through with blood as the runic array is instantaneously carved onto his chest. He howls for a moment before breaking off into demented cackling. He cackles, seemingly without needing to take a breath as the runes both in the air and on his chest continue slowly turning, the rivers of blood around him gradually spinning in time with the array, slowly picking up speed.

As the array makes a final rotation, having done so fifty times previous, he abruptly stops cackling. The wall of blo9od that had been spinning around him completely freezes, not a drop so much as quivering. He drops softly to his knees and lets his arms fall to his sides, a singular tear rolling down his right cheek, having somehow escaped its viridian prison. His voice is a mellifluous whisper, near inaudible, even in the deathly silence of the chamber.

"To see the world in a grain of sand, and hold infinity in the palm of my hand, Incipere." It happens in and instant. The grain of time sand shoots off like a bullet, piercing him the chest, dead center of the array on it, embedding itself in his heart. The frozen wall of blood reverses the track it had been on and in a rush, spins back fifty-one times before exploding outward for a brief moment, then rushing back in and coalescing into a sphere around the madman.

In a blink, it is over, there is a soft 'pop,' and the cave is a dry and empty as it had been before the insane sorcerer had come and turned it into a sacrificial ritual site.


	2. Chapter 1 Arrival

Well, this is chapter one, And such. Enjoy- or dont. if you like it, drop a review, feedback always helps

Disclaimer: yea yea, wish it was all mine, but its not.

Chapter 1: Arrival

April 26, 1986

Chernobyl nuclear plant, reactor 4

Pripyat, Soviet Union

1:20am – Its quiet, like any other day, or night, in this case. The plant operators are scurrying around, quickly and efficiently, chattering amongst themselves as they prepare for a routine test of the emergency fail safes built into the cooling system.

1:22 – one by one, the operators call affirmative at the stations, ready for the test to begin.

1:23 – Something is very, very wrong, pressure gauges in the cooling tanks are skyrocketing, alarm klaxons shrieking throughout the facility. The operators are franticly mashing buttons and wrenching on levers and dials. There is a shriek of protesting metal and escaping steam. The operator's worst nightmares have come true, a reactor breach has occurred.

What keeps the dumbfounded, unable to flee the melting reactor, is not heart-stopping fear, but utter incredulity. There, in the center of the reactor floor, standing amidst the billowing gouts of hissing steam and sparks, is standing a man. Presumably a scientist, going by his lab coat and frizzy silvery hair. But none of them recognize him, and he doesn't seem to even notice the rapidly deteriorating reactor beneath his feat, or the massive geyser of steam billowing around him.

He is just standing there, _laughing. Cackling._ Too late, the operators snap back to attentions and try to run. There is a loud groaning from everywhere, metal tearing and concrete shaking apart. The reactor blows. The head operator is farthest from it, and is the only one to see something even stranger than the strange man appearing in an exploding reactor in the dead of night. The man is engulfed by an orb of what looks to be blood, just a fraction of a second before the eruption.

Everything goes black as the operators are engulfed in an intense, searing heat. Its hours later when the ones that survived wake, but unluckily for them, its not in a hospital. The find themselves sat in clusters of five, bound and gagged. Their bindings are staked to the ground at the five points of what looks to be a pentagram, but with many, many, intricately drawn symbols running all throughout the circle and around it.

Besides the operators, there appear to be mostly civilians from the nearby town of Pripyat, bound and gagged along with them. In the background, there can be seen helicopters, buzzing back and forth, hurriedly evacuating the town of its peoples. Beyond that, a terrifying sight; a billowing mushroom cloud, lit by the glowing hellfires of radiation contained within. Before any of them can really begin to struggle, the man from before is at the edge of the circle.

He is excitedly bouncing from foot to foot, a manic glint in his eyes and wearing a vicious smile. His teeth seem too sharp. He prances around the circle, seemingly checking the symbols over. As he passes, people begin to speak, demanding to know what's happening, why they are there, why they haven't been evacuated, or merely murmuring that it's all a horrible nightmare.

He cackles madly, his eyes wildly spinning in there sockets. Then he speak, a very odd accent tinging his words and making them sound a mystic rasp, ["oh, my lovelies my lovelies! Thank you sooooo much for helping me so!"] Here he giggles girlishly, shutting everyone up and sending shivers down their backs. ["Now, I had to gather you all on short notice, and there aren't enough of you, but, oh well! Sit tight and try not to laugh, it will tickle!"] His shrieking laugh pierces the air again and a collective gulp can be heard.

With a swagger, the man paces back to some arbitrary point in the circle and squats to the ground. He claps his hands together and rubs them together giddily as a whitish, ashy substance begins to rain from the sky. Around the circle the Geiger counters on the reactor operators begin to tick furiously; fallout. There's a renewed bout of struggling all around, but it's pointless. The mad scientist, for that's the only thing any of them could think of him as, shoved his hands to the ground and, with a great rushing sound and the crackling of a massive energy, it began.

Immediately, all twenty five of the bound people began to scream in agony as arcs of red energy burst from the circle and across each of the offerings. One of the operators detachedly noticed the Scientist's frazzled, silvery hair stood out on end, tiny bolts of the red energy arcing from it. The mad cackling began again, this time an endless deluge of horrid mirth, sadistic glee given a sound.

After a few moments of the screaming and the arcing of the energy, the Scientist lifts his from the ground, writhing tendrils of the maroon power connecting him to his construct. He twists his hands in the air, then clamps them together, and the scream immediately cuts off. The twenty five body were gone, no trace remaining. Slowly, he draws his hands apart, and nestled in his palm, a knobby, bloody red stone, gleaming in the hellish orange light of the mushroom cloud.

He holds the stone up to his eye, pinched between thumb and fore finger, and examines it as though through a jeweler's loup. "Hrm.. its weak, but it'll do the trick I suppose.." Carelessly, the stone is tossed in the air a couple of times before being stowed in a pocket for later. The pale arrow-wand is retrieved from his ear and twirled between his fingers a moment before he whips it in a swirling motion at the ground. The earth seems to _s_ _hiver,_ s destroying the circle and any evidence anything had happened at all.

Another manic grin splits the mad man's face as he starts whistling cheerfully, slowly waltzing away from the growing mushroom cloud and the site of his mass murder with total ease and nonchalance. What a bastard.

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1 month later

Western Romania

["What are you monster?!"] Comes the shriek of the fleeing vampire, blood spraying across the surrounding trees as it dashes through the forest, desperate to escape the _monster_ it had stupidly provoked. A grating, high pitched cackle is his answer. Before the vampire can try to identify the origin of the terrifying sound, its pinned to a tree by the throat, gagging for air it doesn't need. "Odd, you don't often hear that from a vampire…"

The Scientist rambles on to his captive audience for a bit longer, then he shrugs, "Oh well, toodles!" His hand squeezes shut, breaking the creature's neck. He drops the lump of undead flesh and steps back, then snaps his fingers, "Damnit, I was going to ask how far I am from Bulgaria!" He stamps his foot in irritation. "Oh well! I guess I'll have to find another..." He stalks off, once more headed vaguely south-west.


	3. Merlin? No, just call me Rick

Right, new chapter and what not

Disclaimer: none of it is mine, its all **_hers_**

Chapter 2: Merlin? No, just call me Rick.

Late summer, 1987

Somewhere in the forests of Shkodër, Albania

A black, mist-like wraith glides silently above the underbrush and fallen leaves littering the forest floor. It exudes an aura of intense darkness, evil, and pure, unbridled fury. The weight of this aura has warned off all the local fauna, leaving it to silently seethe as it noiselessly glides through the forest, a trail of dead and withered flora marking it's passage.

From high above, a pair of wild, restless eyes is fixed on the wraith. Steady, unblinking, _focused_. The Scientist hangs by his legs from a tree branch, hands out stretched, as though reaching for the grim aura of his quarry. His tongue lolls out of his mouth in his concentration, and a single glob of saliva slides off it, tenuously dangling by a glistening thread before it snaps, and the glob plummets to the forest floor. The sound is near inaudible, but the wraith freezes as though it had been dunked in liquid nitrogen.

The faceless head of the phantom angles toward the scientist, its gaze seeming to bore into the man in such an odd position in the tree. "Hi-hi Tom-Tom! How-how are you-you?" The mad man asks in a girly, sing-song voice as his legs slack and he seems to _slide_ off the branch he hangs from. The wraith's shriek of fury is cut off as it observes the utter grace and fluidity of the man as he seems to ooze through the branches of the tree, falling, but gaining no momentum, impacting nothing until he lithely arrives on one foot at the base of the tree, performing a _perfect_ pirouette.

A voice, as though rasping from beyond the veil of death, comes seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at once, "Who are you, mortal? And why do you seek me out in this gods-forsaken land?" The wraith demands, floating closer. In response, the Scientist reaches out and _swipes his hand through it_. The wraith replies with a wordless shriek of anger as the man draws away with the smallest wisp of its form, before it vanishes, coalescing back into the whole.

"Now-now Tom-Tom! Inside voice! Inside voice!" Another wagged finger accompanies the admonishment as the man slowly walks around the creature, twiddling his wand, seemingly idly, with its point to the ground. The wraith shrieks in anger again, rotating to follow its tormentor, and not noticing the triangles and rings of runes etching themselves into the dirt around it.

After two full rotations, the Scientist gives a delighted hop and _wiggles_ in the air, before returning to the ground, a manic look on his face, and eyes glinting maliciously, "Now, Thomas Marvolo Riddle, don't move a single nanometer, or this will _much_ more than tickle!" His voice is so different from a moment ago, so serious, _commanding_ , that the wraith of Tom Riddle freezes in shock. It's only for a moment, but that's all that the Scientist really needed. In a flash, the wand is back behind his ear, and a bloody red stone, something Tom Riddle had spent decades _upon decades_ searching for and researching, takes its place.

The man drops to the ground in a squat, hands coming together to rub the stone between them. Little arcs of maroon electricity crackle over his hands before they split and slam into the ground, the philosophers stone left floating in place. _**"Spiritus! Et in carne, et renasci!"**_ He cries as the runic array beneath bursts to life with crackling arcs of raw power.

Before the shade can even begin to wail, it is compressed, crushed to the size of a marble in an instant. From the circle, a tall, willowy male body is rapidly grown, skeletal structure, enveloped quickly in lean muscle, organs, wet and glistening with brand new blood, all summarily wrapped in baby-soft, fresh pink skin. A short, wiry crown of hair sprouts from the body's scalp in an instant, murky brown strands standing on end from the powerful energies at play.

For a moment, the homunculus is motionless. Then its mouth drops open and the black marble of Tom Riddle's shade drops into it. The mouth closes and the throat muscles convulse, the first twitch of movement in a cascade of jerks and spasms as the array on the forest floor dies away, the ritual complete. After a long moment, its eyes slowly drift open. Then, as the final glimmer of energy dies away and the vastly dimmer stone is plucked from the air, it collapses, a marionette bereft of its strings.

A moan, a few hacking coughs, followed by a growled out, "Bloody fucking hell." The newly reborn Tom Riddle rolls over onto his back, light brown eyes flickering back and forth until coming to a stop on the smirking Scientist leaning over him, rubbing at a non-existent stubble on his chin. "A-are you Merlin?" He stutters out, an undertone of awe clear in his voice. The Man jerks back violently, as though slapped, "What? No!" a pause, "Maybe... No, not Merlin, but..." His head cocks to the side, monochromatic eyes flicking back and forth startlingly, "I feel like a Rick today. Call me Rick!"

Tom is immensely confused by the response, then exasperated and annoyed when 'Rick' uses his finger to pull down one eyelid and sticks his tongue out at him. He sits up, slowly stretching and testing his new body with a sense of renewed awe, "H-how have you done this?!" He demands, a glint in his newfound eyes. 'Rick' cocks his head to the side, his pale, silvery purple hair, for once laid down, cascading over his shoulder.

"I just told your body to grow back." He says in a mildly childish, but mostly lecturing tone, while motioning to the runic circle with a flip of his hand. "Hardest part was finding you, why are you all the way out here anyways?" The question seems offhand, as Rick has already spun around and begun taking outrageously exaggerated 'pirate paces' in a northwesterly direction. Tom scrambled to his feet, just then realizing his lack of clothing, and dashed after the rapidly retreating figure of his resurrecter, zero collective fucks about his nudity given, despite the slight chill in the cooling evening air.

Tom quickly catches up to Rick and frowns disdainfully at his odd gait, "Never you mind that, why were you looking for me?" His eyes harbor a guarded look of curiosity and suspicion. Rick doesn't even spare him a glance, his miscolored eyes instead fixated on everything and seemingly nothing as his head pivots in one direction, then another, all around the forest. Suddenly, as though due to delayed transmission, the head of silvery hair snaps to Tom, eyes no longer empty, but boring directly into the hunculi's own.

"Ah-ah-ah, my question first Thomas!" His voice is disturbingly cheerful, but somehow filled with an iron will, not to be denied. A vein in Tom's forehead begins to pulse while one of his eyes start twitching in irritation. Grateful he may be for his rebirth, Tom is still a Dark Lord, and used to the fear and respect that that title carries with it. Being without wand or clothes, in a foreign country, in the company of someone capable of forging a homunculi with a ritual circle and _force of will alone_ however, tempers his anger and he sighs, rubbing at his temples in an attempt to stave off the rapidly forming headache.

"I don't know what drew me here, I wasn't fully in control of as a shade, not always at least." He finally replied, looking pained to admit it. Rick made a humming sound as he continued his ridiculous pace through the forest, tapping his chin a few times. After a while of silence, just as Tom was about to pose his question again, Rick pontificated, "So, for all intents and purposes, you were a ship without a sail, cast adrift on the astral sea of this plane..."

Tom just stared at him for long moments, trying to comprehend how he had come to that conclusion. Eventually, he just sighed and rubbed at his temples a bit harder, a wasted effort as his headache developed regardless, flourishing in the mind-bending caricature of a man that called itself 'Rick'. "Will you answer my question now?" He ask/demanded, highly aware that the most dangerous opponent wasn't the trained or the experienced, it was the odd, unpredictable ones.

He received another soul-piercing gaze for his troubles, until, finally, /finally,/ the Scientist stopped his ridiculous walk and turned to face him fully. When he spoke, it was with a chillingly dark and gleeful tone that bode well for no man; "I have plans! Big, big, /big/ plans for the world! You and your motley little boy band of," he suddenly stops, snapping his fingers repeatedly while evidently searching for the correct word, "Ah, yes, Death Eaters! You and your _adorable_ little Death Eaters would make the most _perfectest_ distraction to cover my efforts towards them!"

Rick's hands swung violently around while he spoke, nearly clipping Tom before they drew in as the Scientist hugged himself while saying _'perfectest'_. Tom stared at the mad creature before him, absolutely certain that the man was stark raving mad. But at the same time, He /had/ given him a new body, for the express purpose of returning to his life's work, and he was _undoubtedly_ powerful, frighteningly so in fact.

All that left only two questions in his mind, for the time being anyway; "Can you conjure me a robe, its getting rather chilly." After a derisive cackle and a swish of what Tom was certain was a wand crafted from bone; "What are we doing _walking_ through Albania? Should we not make haste and apparate back to England?" A valid question, in all honesty.

Rick merely cocked his head to the side once more, and gave another less-than-informative answer; "I have the strangest feeling that I will be missing something rather important if I merely dash away to the Isle." Further questioning merely garnered more of the same from the dodgy Scientist.


	4. Chapter 3: Beautifully mad, My Dear

Standard disclaimer applies

Chapter 3: Beautifully mad, My Dear

March 6, 1987

Zeebruuge, Belgium

It had taken months of travel, exhausting, endless traveling, accompanied by The-Man-Who-Doesn't-Know-Who-The-Bloody-Hell-He-Is, as Tom had taken to calling him, in his head of course. He wasn't particular of being beaten with his own limbs, as he had quickly found was the preferred method of punishment employed by said man.

They had /walked/ from Albania to Belgium, an endless trek by anyone's reckoning, because /Rudolph Hoss,/ as he was calling himself today, had insisted something ranging between 'good' and 'astounding, bedazzling, and otherwise stupefying' would happen if they did. Tom was, beyond his ability to verbalize, infuriated and terrified of the psychotic he traveled with. The things he said, on a whole, were mind numbing in the complexities and meaninglessness.

So they found themselves In the Port city of Zeebruuge, their mother country, Britain, only a short ferry ride away. Tom was so relieved by this he felt he might lift from the ground and float way. "Oh dear, looks like we will spending another few hours in dear sweet Belgium..." The psycho's voice was, for once, somewhat solemn, despite the strange mosh of French and Norwegian accents he was effecting today. The sound was infuriating, but what really caught the Dark Lord was the statement. Here they were, one short-distance apparition away from home, and this- this- this madman wanted them to stay here /longer/!

"What do you/MEAN/ longer! I can see Britain from /here!/" Tom shouted in exasperation. He could surely apparate himself there, but he was no fool to think that Rudolph wouldn't find and punish him for 'impertinence'. A long, bone-white finger pointed into the bay, where a ship was leaving port. "The ferry has already depar-" He cut himself off, his eyes going wide before closing, then a terrifyingly malicious, manic grin cut a crossed his face like a knife.

"It's happening, /it's happening!/" His voice was a cut between shrieking and giggling that Tom hadn't heard yet, and that grated horribly on his ears. Then an iron-hard hand gripped his arm, as though to remove and beat him with, and Tom cringed, tensing up. In an instant, he felt the strangest feeling of being pulled backwards through time, accompanied by the all-encompassing pressure of apparition. If asked he could describe or explain what had happened, only that one moment he had been on dry land, and in the moment before that one, he appeared on the deck of the ferry.

"Ooohhhhh, I feel it, /I feel it!" Came Rudolph's giddy shriek of what could only be joy. After turning and vomiting the contents of his stomach on the deck of the ferry, Tom demanded, "What, /what are you so excited for?/" He managed before retching again. The Scientist's voice dropped an icy octave and he flatly stated, "Quiet your sniveling and you'd hear it for yourself." That voice sent shivers down Toms back, and he did as commanded.

At that very moment, the ferry shuddered, and the shriek of tearing metal could be heard from below. In an instant, the manic giddiness had returned and Rudolph had plucked his wand from his ear. The wand spun briefly between his fingers, then pointed down, a painfully bright red beam emitting from it as it traced a circle around its wielder. When the circle was completed, the line of melted steel it had traced gave, and the Scientist dropped through the deck of the ship, into the cargo hold.

Tom grimaced, but dropped through the hole after him. The fall was further than he had thought, coaxing him to thrash a bit and sprawl on landing. There was already a foot of water in the hold, pouring in through the gaping hole in the hull where the freight door used to be. There were dead and dying gasping and bobbing back and forth in the bloodied water, and at the head, still actively at work, an old crone of a woman, with as many wrinkles and gray hairs as Dumbledore himself.

Instead of patroni and those awful lemon candies, she was slinging out Avada kedavras and flame whips. Rudolph was frozen, motionless on the hood of a car, eyes wide in what Tom could only guess was awe. As he watched, the witch AKd a woman, then a moment later threw out a whip of a black, ichorus substance that wrapped around the victim, then constricted. Not much could both sicken and simultaneously fascinate Tom, but when the whip passed through the woman and was ripped from her, holding an intangible substance vaguely humanoid in shape, he was both.

The crone of a woman examined the soul she had stolen, then sneered and flicked her wand upward. The soul was smacked into the ceiling of the hold, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, /it/ happened, the soul seemed to combust, exploding as if a massive bomb. The ship was torn wide, exposing open air to the rapidly filling hold. Rudolph's whisper at this was almost inaudible over the shrieks of the injured and dying; "Mayhap I don't have to destroy the /whole/ world after all…"

The old woman had apparently expended too much energy with that soul shearing spell, and the magical exhaustion was clear on her face as she slumped back. In an instant, Rudolph was there, cradling her in his arms, "Rest, ma belle, belle chérie, rest, you did so wonderfully, please rest." He murmured into her ear, wrapping his arms tighter around her. He turned to the watching dark wizard, standing dumfounded on the other side of the hold, water up to his knees.

"Come Tom, it is time we leave this toy box for the muggles to clean up!" Rudolph's voice was a strange mixture of joyous giddiness and subdued somnolence that gave Tom a headache to listen to. Tom quickly sloshed over to the duo and took Rudolph's upper arm tightly, bracing for the unsettling feeling of the man's strange for of apparition. Then the psycho did something so outlandish and incomprehensible that Tom immediately blanked it from his mind, deciding to contemplate it later, or more likely, never.

He stuck out his tongue. He stuck out his tongue, /and five beams of energy shot from it./ The five beams spun briefly and the ship groaned, as though in pain, then the bow of the ship /sheared off into the waves./" Tom only saw this for the briefest of moments before that hooking, squeezing feeling crushed him once again and they were gone, leaving the ferry to ground on a shoal and over 200 people to bleed or drown to death.

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Faire Dubh Cùm

Cippyn, Cardigan, Wales

The crushing, pulling motion finally ended, the trio of travelers being deposited into the courtyard of an ancient obsidian keep, stone worn and scarred by the many centuries of its stand, but still proudly polished and maliciously gleaming in the high, midday sun. The scientist and his passenger landed gracefully on bended knee, Tom? In a heap of limbs on the hard stone beside him. The Dark Lord immediately began vomiting once more, not that there was anything to regurgitate, just bile and a clear fluid.

Without even sparing the man a glance, The Lord of the Castle immediately set off at a quick trot through the waiting door of the keep. The old woman in his arms was fairing only slightly better than Tom, in that she hadn't vomited, but she was close. Her head stayed on a swivel, taking in the surroundings passing by her with wonder. She didn't recognize this place specifically, but the banners and coat of arms on the many shields and armors, and hung from the many ceiling they passed under, proudly decried this keep as a holding of the Ancient and Most Noble House Black, her own family.

He head darted back around to stare intensely at the barer, scrutinizing his wizened figures with a critical eye. The high, elfin cheek bones of the Blacks, a very strong, square jaw, almost a perfect match to the Potters, large, slightly slanted eyes of the Blacks, the wide-spread heterochromia passed through the Black line, evident in his eyes and hair, although she couldn't identify the verdant viridian of his one eye, she hadn't seen that shade of green in a wizarding family since history class in Hogwarts.

Before she could comment, they passed through another doorway, into a very well appointed suite of rooms. She was gently deposited on the luscious silk topped bed, and the man withdrew another curiosity, his wand. White, undoubtedly of bone, 13 ½ inches, her sharp eyes called to her, and its point, and elongated, tri-bladed arrow point. The curious wand danced through the air above her, a vast array of spells in all colors of the spectrum pouring out of it and gently caressing her.

Then he spoke, his voice filled with gentleness, but tinged by the Black Madness, "Only mild magical exhaustion, thankfully. You shouldn't be casting such strenuous magic so consistently, young lady, you can damage your core like that!" He was playfully rebuking her, and she couldn't help the brief smile that she quickly fought into a scowl as she propped herself up with the pillows strewn a crossed the bed.

"And just who are you calling young lady and chastising, Mr. Black?" She demanded playfully, her own madness coming out to meet this new, heretofore unknown family member. That caused the man to freeze, his eyes widening fractionally as he stared back at her in mild shock. Tom chose that moment to shuffle in, but seeing the expressions on the two Black's faces, reversed the motion and quickly backed away, shutting the door as he passed it.

He wanted nothing to do with something that made that maniac look like that, valuable blackmail material or not. Back in the room, the man's expression faded into neutrality, his sanity seeming to blanket and smother the glimmering madness in him as full rationality descended and asserted itself. The woman took note of this and followed much the same, gulping as she contemplated how far she may have mistepped in her playful return. There were Blacks that hid their heritage, with very good reason, and that very much did /not/ appreciate the revelation of their true identities.

She bowed her head slightly to him, "My apologies, good sir, but your heritage is in your face, I had not thought that you were one of they who forsook our name." He stared at her very hard, and had she not complete and total certainty that her mental shields were not breached, she would have thought that his gaze were filled with legilimency probes. After a long moment, he finally spoke into the unnerving quiet.

"Not at all, Madame Black, it is merely that I have not been called by my birthright in a great many decades, and it was both startling and heartwarming, to be recognized once more by the Family once more. Shall we not introduce ourselves? That we might discontinue the abuse of our Family moniker and know each other on a more personal level?" He asked her, his speak rigidly formal, but inviting none the less.

"But of course, Dear Black, I am Cassiopeia Dorea, daughter of Cygnus Phineas and Violetta Bulstrode." She made as much of a formal bow as she could, propped up as she was on the pillows that supported her. The mad gleam returned to the man's eye for a moment, and a mischievous grin that was all Potter crooked his lip for just the fleetest moment before he spoke, "I am Velorum Orion, son of Jameson Charlus Potter and Bellatrix Dorea. It is a very great pleasure to meet you, Cassiopeia Dorea." He took her hand and bent over it to kiss it.

Cassiopeia took several long moments to think through this, her brains crunching through the family tree, begging for it to begin to make sense to her, which it did not. His mischievous grin had returned ten-fold and his head looked moments from splitting in half. And then it clicked and her face morphed into pure astonishment and awe. "You figured out how to travel through time!" She very nearly screamed it in her excitement.

His grin very nearly did split his head in two, and he nodded, then, as the door began to open and Tom's face appeared in the space, the words 'time traveler' on his lips, something happened. Velorum seemed to shift, without moving, his outline becoming blurry as his torso twisted around, wand at the ready. As though in reverse, Tom withdrew and the door shut, a hail of silencing and privacy spells hammering into the oaken door. His blurred form quickly righted itself and time seemed to return to normal.

Cassi was nearly bouncing up and down on the bed, excitement pouring out of her in near-tangible waves, "/You just manipulated time!/" Her shrieking voice very nearly pierced Velorum's ear drums, but he didn't mind, seeing so much energy restored to the woman was good. "I did in fact, and now, I'm going to do it again, after a fashion." He told her, his grin redoubling, having never left in the first place. Cassi froze, mid bounce, expectation written plainly on her face. "What will you be doing?" She asked/demanded.

"I'm going to restore you magic reserves." He told her, advancing on her and tucking his wand back behind his ear. From his pocket he withdrew something small, knobby and red, one of the most coveted items in bother the magical and mundane worlds. "Please hold still, my dear lady, this will very much hurt if you move." Without giving her a chance to question him further, he tossed the stone into the air and his hands flashed out, carving a flaming runic array into the air in a flash.

Even having devoted a solid decade to runic study, Cassi couldn't decipher any more than 'gateway' and 'return' from the array, and both those from such old and archaic rune alphabets that she was guessing for those. The falling stone caught in the center of the array and began to glow with an intense red energy, which then began to radiate in a beam unto the elderly woman, encompassing her whole body in a blinding red glow.

The glow remained for exactly forty-one seconds, then faded away, the philosopher's stone that had powered it crumbling away to dust. In the absence of the light, there lay, not an elderly woman of seventy one, but a beautiful young woman of thirty. Velorum licked his lips, and as Cassiopeia sat up, eyes wide in wonderment, alternating between eyeing up herself and staring and him, he closed his eyes and began to change as well.

His feature flowed like water, wrinkles smoothing out, flesh tightening, muscles firming with strength. His hair smoothed itself out of its frazzled, static shocked standing and laid smoothly between his shoulder blades and down his back. Its color deepened by the moment, the silvery gray and lavender being replaced by a lustrous jet black and a deep, sugilite purple. His last feature to change was his eyes. The bloody red orb in his left socket slowly faded into a startling lavender, and the verdant green deepened to a hard, biting emerald.

Taking a moment to stretch, a listening to the litany of bones clicking, clacking, popping, and cracking back into place, he finally turned his gaze to Cassi, his grin returning again as his eyes drank her in. "My my, quite the beautiful young lady you make, dearest Cassiopeia." He bowed deeply to her, his hair tumbling over his shoulders in a cascade of deep and dark colors. Cassi blushed deeply, but quickly turned it back on Velorum. "You cut quite the handsome figure yourself, Master Velorum." She replied with as much haughty flirtation as she could muster on such short notice.

"I realize, dearest, that you will want a great many answers, but first, let us set to dinner and feast, I am quite famished." Velorum declared.


End file.
